Friday, April 26, 2024

Great books of American literature

APPLES TO APPLES Gary Bégin

Posted

Some people actually still reads books, so I have compiled a list of "Great Books of American Literature" you can read this summer:

Let's start with:
• A Farewell to Legs by Poppa Hemingrhoids. A chilling account of what happens when a millennial goes to war for a left-wing cause in a strange place --- Seattle. The cause - free Starbucks for life.
• Another blockbuster classic, 50 Shades of Trash, the trials and tribulations of a recycling executive who decides to go rogue and sleep with the head of the milk jugs department. Things get nasty when the aluminum can repurpose manager wants a "go-to-meeting" at the landfill.
• To Mock a Killingbird: the greatest story ever told about what happens when the  object of scorn decides to scratch your eyes out after going on a steroidal-infused worm and ladybug all-weekend binge.
• One Flew Under the Cookoo's Nest: It gets messy when the white stuff hits the fan. Depending on your point of view, those with too much "fly under the nest time" get a free ride to the looney bin. Nurse Ratchett is actually a drug dealer who also gets a piece of the action for every pre-frontal lobotomy performed. The huge Native American guy who acts mute through most of the book, now runs a casino somewhere on the Westside of the state.
• The Grapes of Math: Academics in a battle royale. Whose equation will win the day? Will migrating West help a theorem gain wings? Who really said 2+2=4 anyway? Stomp your feet in rhythm to this fast paced whiney epic. Dust Bowl be damned - cabernet sauvignon ahoy!
• Of Mice and Mean: Another Steinpeck adventure in math. The movie version has a full 15 minutes of the camera focused on Stephen Hawking, sitting quietly in his multi-function wheel chair, mulling over the great question of the day - paper or plastic? He finally snaps out of his reverie when the ghost of Carl Sagan taps him on the should and whispers, Steve, Steve - they don't offer paper anymore. That was 10 reveries ago.
• Another Hemingrhoids classic: For Whom the Taco Bell Tolls. Ask not for whom the Taco Bell tolls, they just need to know, for here or to go, señor?
• Yet another from the 'rhoid collection: The Senior Who Identifies as a Man and the Great Body of Water (The Old Man and the Sea). In this thriller, this guy, well kinda, goes out on his little boat and tackles a great beast on a huge body of water, some call - the ocean. When he comes home covered in squid bait, he lies down and dies. A truly perspiring adventure. Turns out it was just a dream. He just went shopping at the seafood counter and bought an octopus and some farm-raised talapia, but he did die on a wayward bone gone sideways down his trachea.
• Diminutive Self-Identifies as a Female (Little Women): Louisa Maynot Apricot. A book better read after high school and college and most of your life. Once you've figured out who you might be, have been or wannabe. Some will never read it, perhaps in protest, perhaps as a slap in the face to those who put it on this list.
• The Call of the Mild: A Jack Glasgow classic set in Scotland. Wolves courtesy of the Audobon Society. 'Nuff said. Just howl with it baby.
• Celsius 451: Feel the burn and I don't mean Sanders. As Johnny & June would sing, this story is "hotter than a pepper sprout."
• Catch 2200: An updated version of Joe Hell's greatest work on the bureaucracy that binds us and ultimately destroys what little humanity we had to begin with.

There you have it. My favorite American Classics. Just don't go to the library asking around. You just might stumble onto the real thing. If you Google these titles - get ready for the robot to correct your every word. That's just Google being the spouse it thinks it is. Be prepared for: "Did you mean? Did you mean? Did you mean?" ad nauseam.

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